Erick, fruitful in what way? Do you mean you have been able to understand aiki from a biomechanics perspective?

What does that get you?

A pretty good amount...

A nonsubjective, nonculture-bound set of terminology and concepts of universal application.

That's something .... For instance, the weapons interactions known as suri-age, suri-otoshi, kiri-age and kiri-otoshi -- which describe a fundamental aspect of interacting in aiki dynamically -- are simply different orientations in applying one singular thing -- a dynamic shear. Kokyu tanden ho is the application of applying stresses within the body to create static stress shears -- contradictory forces (tension/compression) with a juji/right-angle orientation -- and shifting their orientation and location in connected structures. It is somewhat more complesx than that -- because the paths of correct action for me, dynamic or more static are me following the zero shear lines -- and placing his action on maximal shear lines -- In-Yo, in other words.

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Personally, I cannot comprehend how anything like skill in martial arts, or even simply skill in movement or use of the body, can be attained without physical intuition.

How does objective understanding help? It sounds as though you are suggesting that a student may be better able to manifest aiki if he watches some physics experiments on youtube.

I think you can learn more from the video of the inanimate chain than from most videos of real people.

I completely agree, though -- physical intuition must be developed -- but with an objectively consistent conceptual language -- one can give correct -- and REPEATABLY consistent -- PHYSICAL imagery to assist the development of that physical intuition.

Physical intuition learning alone WILL suffice in a direct relationship of training -- I wholeheartedly agree, also. But experience proves beyond doubt that three generations on, the details of that kind of pure experiential intuition get obscured -- like the game of Telephone -- the message becomes muddy, indistinct and verges away from what was originally meant. The present movements on IP/IS are profound testament to that fact.

Rooted in a set of concepts with the conceptual rigor always gives an objective reference that is not dependent on consistency of message and transmission. Saito, Shioda, and Tohei for example and to their respective credit, each tried in their own ways to impose that that rigor in training methods for an intuitionally based transmission system -- but the diversity of even their respective first generation efforts at describing the concepts to frame their methods, easily illustrates the nature of the problem. Objective description framing physical intuition development is indisputable to consistent transmission.

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And at the end of the day, it never seems to matter if the student "understands" what they are doing. In fact, since it was a standard mode for koryu to absolutely WITHHOLD from a student knowledge that would lead to understanding of what they are doing until they achieved a certain level of physical intuition, I think you need to directly address that.

They are not and should not be separate but complementary. And we are not koryu. We are Westerners -- we share basic and even intricate knowledge widely -- more widely than most people have any practical use for . AND YET, as I recall we showed the rather superior martial character of our processes of democratizing knowledge to the Home Islands, quite some time ago. Judging by the Bullet train, Akashi Kaikyo bridge and the Osaka airport -- they certainly adopted those lessons in almost every other sphere of endeavor.

I -- literally -- keep a chain handy to show some of these concepts -- and did so long before I saw the levitating chain video. I illustrate aiki sage on the chain -- lifting the other end off the floor with proper action, and then I demonstrate the same thing on the student. I've seen lights snap on. On the other end of the spectrum, kokyu tanden ho is correctly described and illustrated as the same process as picking a chain up off the ground. In my partner, I am incrementally picking up each successive link of his body, until most of him is being supported by me and not by his own base, and what is left in contact with the ground is not sufficient to control what happens next.

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What happens when they think they understand something but are incorrect?